Newburgh nonprofit launches app to help formerly incarcerated people

A Newburgh nonprofit has rolled out a new app for formerly incarcerated people and the loved ones who help them navigate reentry. The tool is built for phones and the web, a practical move for people who may not have steady access to the same devices or connectivity as everyone else in Orange County.

The app’s home page points users toward links organized around support and identity, including an Artist Spotlight that currently features Shards of Mirror, a spoken-word poetry album by Jose Perez. That choice signals that the app is not only trying to route people toward services, but also to center lived experience and the voices of people rebuilding their lives after incarceration.

After Incarceration, the Newburgh-based organization behind the app, says it was founded and is led by currently and formerly incarcerated people. The group says its work is grounded in Kingian Nonviolence and runs three core programs: Pilgrimage to Peace, Freed to Feed and Project RISE. On its site, the organization describes its mission as accelerating the personal and professional growth of currently and formerly incarcerated community members while disrupting cycles of violence through healing, education, leadership development and community engagement.

The release lands in a county where reentry support already depends on a network of local partnerships, and where the biggest barriers are often the most basic ones: housing, employment, treatment, education and family stability. New York State’s Division of Criminal Justice Services says county re-entry task forces operate in 20 counties, including Orange County, as part of a broader strategy to reduce recidivism and promote community safety. Those task forces are meant to connect people leaving prison with local supports that can make the difference between stability and another arrest.

RECAP, which has co-chaired the Orange County Reentry Task Force since 2007, says those projects were intended to reduce recidivism by connecting high-risk participants with community support during the transition from incarceration to life in the community. The group also says its Newburgh office shares space with the Orange County Reentry program and works closely with collaborative partners to serve the city’s low-income population. In that context, the new app looks less like a stand-alone product than another doorway into a system that already has to help people find jobs, housing and a foothold at home.

The app’s use of Jose Perez’s work adds another layer. The Children’s Defense Fund says Perez is a program strategist for Children’s Defense Fund-New York and a national voice on youth justice and child welfare reform. Featuring his poetry inside the app ties the platform to a wider movement in which formerly incarcerated people are not just service recipients, but advocates, artists and organizers shaping the public conversation in Newburgh and beyond.